3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

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TByers
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3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by TByers »

Hi there,

We are required to 3D scan a heritage building which consists of a very large amount of reflective surfaces. Most of the walls are made of black marble, which is the reflective surface in question. Has anyone had experience scanning these types of surfaces? What settings were used? DId it come out ok?

Finally, this information is to be used for as-built documentation, and not necessarily dimensions.

Thanks in advance.
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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by Scott.Warren »

I've seen on the forum that using Talc + Alcohol in a spray bottle works. This seems to be more for individual items, pipes, tanks, glass. Not sure the best approach for a massive surface area.

https://www.laserscanningforum.com/foru ... alc#p68003

https://www.laserscanningforum.com/foru ... alc#p65069
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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by gordonired »

Can you do a quick scan or two on a sunny day as an experiment? I've scanned some very reflective/shiny steel structures, and while noisy, I still have data that is usable. You just have to clean it up quite a bit more if you want to present it to the boss or client in the end. With that noise, you also have less dense data where your actual object is as well, so consider scanning at a higher resolution/quality.
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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by TByers »

I am going to be doing some test/pilot scans this Friday. Thanks for your input and insight on the matter. I will take that into consideration while we do the testing.

Cheers,

Tyler
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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by sim.herrod »

We use this on machined steel and internal mirrors...

https://www.magnaflux.com/Products/SKD-S2.htm

Used exactly the same settings as we normally would for the area being scanned. Very clean data, no more noise than a non-shiny surface.

Really easy to apply and cleans off with a dry cloth.

Not sure how practical it would be on large walls.
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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by Slewis33 »

I recommend (if allowed) occasionally placing painters tape, this will be your check of the data.
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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by stutosney »

Hi Tyler,

i have a lot of experience with scanning Heritage buildings, particularly in the UK. I have also scanned several large shopping centres, theatres and museums over the years that have contained many reflective surfaces and/or mirrors. Melbourne Arts Centre was a particular pain. As someone mentioned, placing some tape over the surface can help, especially if you're deleting the surface in your registration. Talc can be used, but if it is a heritage building, I cannot imagine they'd appreciate the mess. The easiest way would be to go into each individual scan and delete the reflective areas, though this can be a long process. One good trick is to get baking parchment and stick it over the surfaces, doesn't create a mess and can be re-used multiple times.
From experience, the best course of action is planning. Just spend a bit of time at the beginning creating a work flow so you know where you are going and can plan accordingly, time spent at the beginning will save a lot of hassle later on.
Good luck and I will be interested to see your results.
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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by Felix_the_Cat »

+1 on what was said

Just want to point out that many scanners have a real problem with BLACK

That’s a double whammy, black and shiny

Do lots of test scans before you commit to anything would be my recommendation


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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by Alex Rekut »

We had experience of scanning such kind of surfaces. It was black reflective marble but surface was much smaller then building. It was indoor wall.
We did not have heling-like spray so we used garden sprayer with clean water and big brush with baby powder.
We blew on the brush with a hair dryer and the dust sat on the wet wall.
I think that you need talc with water or alcogol and somethink like this
https://www.amazon.com/OHMOTOR-Electric ... 0631&psc=1
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Re: 3D Scanning Reflective Surfaces

Post by Martinb9 »

Hi Tyler,
Something that has been mentioned many times on this forum, but I did not see here, is that backing the scanner away from the reflective surface to be scanned will help quite a bit. As you get further away, you will need to crank up the scan resolution to compensate, which means scanning and processing times are both going to go up significantly - hopefully you have a robust PC at your disposal.

As was mentioned by Gordon, you are going to lose a ton of the data that you've collected when you filter out some of the noise, again meaning you'll need to compensate by collecting higher resolution, and possibly more scans. If your processing software can filter by intensity of the return, fiddling with that setting on a scan by scan basis will probably be part of the solution.

From my experience, dark shiny stone is as bad as glass and mirror. I always have to mask the surface of the stone with tape and/or thick paper if I need to collect dimensional / scribe data from the stone surface. With the Surphaser scanner that I use, I've had zero success scanning unmasked polished stone and extracting useful profiles or meshes. (Which you state is not your intention)

In my limited experience baby powder and alcohol leaves a mess requiring a TON of cleanup, even if you can get permission to use it. Try it on something around your office (or preferably warehouse) to get an idea of what the magnitude of the mess will be. I can't even imagine taking on a large project with baby powder.

Be careful to test the painters tape that you choose if you go that route, as it is probably at least part of the solution that you'll need. Some tape is less opaque to the laser than others, and I suspect that the wavelength of the laser probably affects this attribute a fair bit. I've had pretty good success with 3M #205 - ymmv.
Best of luck,

Martin
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